Fate and Destiny

Chapter 21

Christmas was approaching and some of the larger stores in town had put up decorations in their windows of nutcrackers and santas with tinsel and electric lights. Cassie had already brought the women that the suffrage group cards, though she hadn’t written in them yet. She had her own Christmas tree to put up and decorate with tinsel and glass baubles, but she’d been waiting for Gellert to have the time to help her.

“What are you planning?” asked Gellert as he looked around her living room. All of the tinsel and baubles had been left in the corner.
“Christmas things,” she said with a grin. “I was hoping you'd join me, and that we could pick out a tree together.”
“You want me to join you?” he asked, his brow furrowed. Cassie nodded.
“Of course I do, Gellert,” she said. Then, she quickly added with a frown: “If you don't want to, that's fine, I just thought it would be nice. But you don't have to.”

“Cassie, I'd love to,” he said finally. “I haven't spent Christmas with someone in years, let alone celebrated it.”
“You haven’t?” she asked, frowning.
“I haven’t seen my parents in years, they want nothing to do with me,” he said with a shrug. He said it so nonchalantly, Cassie almost believed he didn’t care about it. Almost.
“What about your aunt?” she asked.
“You mean Bathilda?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “It’s been longer since I’ve seen her, I don’t like going back to Godric’s Hollow. Aberforth still lives there anyway.”

“What do you do at Christmas then?”
“Spend it alone, reading or something,” he said with a slight shrug. “I just… take a break and don’t really do anything.”
“You don’t cook a goose or some beef or turkey? No Christmas trees or anything?”
“Well, I thought about getting a Christmas tree a few times but it just made me feel a little pathetic,” he said, shrugging again. He wrapped his arms around Cassie and smiled.“I’d be doing it alone, but I won’t be this year.”

With the tree picked out, Gellert cast an enchantment to keep the pine needles firmly attached to the tree and another charm to ensure it wouldn’t catch fire when they lit the candles. It was wrapped in gold tinsel and Cassie pulled out a box of baubles and hand made trinkets to hang on the tree. Some were flowers made of paper with ribbons attached, charmed to stay clean. Some were heavier baubles made of glass.

“We’ll have to make some of our own to stick on the tree, I do it every year,” said Cassie as she hung a paper rose on the tree.
“What do you make?”
“Flowers, baubles, snowflakes, anything that is sort of Christmas-themed or winter-y,” she answered. “I have some card and ribbons and buttons and all sorts of things we can use, if you want to?” Gellert looked at her and then to the hand made decoration in his hand. A small stitched teddy bear.
“I’d like to try, I can’t promise my craft skills are good though.
“You’ll be fine, you can resort to magic if you need to,” said Cassie with a grin. Gellert nodded.
“That might be needed.”

They sat at the dining table with scissors and different coloured card and bits of paper. Some scrap fabric was piled up too.
“You know, if someone had told me when I met you that all that summer would happen, and that you’d be a Dark Lord and that you’d also be sitting here making a paper snowflake, I would have put them in a hospital.”
“So would I,” said Gellert with a chuckle. “When do you want to give each other presents tomorrow? In the morning or after dinner?”

“Well, I got you two presents,” Cassie said. “I saw one and it made me think of you and then I saw the second one and I couldn’t just not buy it for you.”
“I got you three, to make up for some we’ve missed.” She smiled and he smiled back, though he frowned when he struggled to cut out the shape he drew on the folded paper.
“How about one in the morning, one after dinner?” she suggested.
“And how about the third one?” he asked.
“Surprise me.”
“Alright, I will.”